recursive_directory_iterator is an InputIterator that iterates over the directory_entry elements of a directory, and, recursively, over the entries of all subdirectories. The iteration order is unspecified, except that each directory entry is visited only once.

By default, symlinks are not followed, but this can be enabled by specifying the directory option follow_directory_symlink at construction time.

The special pathnames dot and dot-dot are skipped.

If the recursive_directory_iterator is advanced past the last directory entry of the top-level directory, it becomes equal to the default-constructed iterator, also known as the end iterator. Two end iterators are always equal, dereferencing or incrementing the end iterator is undefined behavior.

If a file or a directory is deleted or added to the directory tree after the recursive directory iterator has been created, it is unspecified whether the change would be observed through the iterator.

If the directory structure contains cycles, the end iterator may be unreachable.